Arkhangel

[Rik_the_Riff]

This is an early sneak preview of a brand new thingie wot I'm doing This, folks, is the first part of my planned long-running serial, Arkhangel. In about a month (when I've finished this summer's exams), I hope to be putting up my own website, where the story will continue....

Welcome to the world....

Arkhangel pt.1: Revival

Episode 1: Arkhangel

The sun was long below the horizon behind them. The light from the fires of the burning village below were dwindling as the chase rose higher up the scree slopes and the cold settled in. Eledra’s legs no longer supported her as far as the next step, and she stumbled from stone to unstable stone, hands stretched out in front of her to meet the steep slope that seemed always rushing up to meet her. Behind her, Tomanen paused and turned, his sling whirling, and let fly another stone – she did not know where he had stored all those he had already slung – which dug into the scree twenty feet below, sending chips of rock flying into the faces of the two lead mûrd as they chased.

One of the mûrd fell, a shard of stone buried in its ugly, slate-grey eye, and tripped the figure following it. The two rolled in the scree, kicking up grit and grappling, until a barked command from a hidden superior stopped them. Eledra saw none of it. Tomanen had turned back to running as soon as he had loosed the stone, and Eledra doubted that she could stop running any more than she could continue. Terror drove them now, Eldra, Tom, Hurd and the others – there were no others, she realised suddenly. She, Tom and Hurd scrambled alone. Cari, Ana, Marl and the other few who had escaped Esse-Deramhin must have fallen, or been caught by the mûrd. For all the ugly creatures were encased in heavy metal plate armour, they were still trained soldiers, hardy from their years at war, and light and agile on their feet.

Hurd turned to take a shot at more of the scrawny creatures, but as he paused, an arrow took him in the side. From the farthest corner of her eye, Eledra saw him fall and tears rose in her eyes. It was Hurd who carried the Landrel, the stone from the shrine in Esse-Deramhin’s central square that they had carried with them in their desperate flight. It was the only thing they had left from the village, and they could not let the mûrd take it. She wished that she could stop the mûrd from taking Hurd as well, with his golden hair, quick smile and his determination to change the world. Perhaps he had, now, but he would never live to know it. Mûrd did not take prisoners.

Tom was just behind Hurd on the slope, and with three sure footsteps, stooped to pick up Hurd’s bundle. He had to drop his sling to do so, though. Eledra knew he was desperate, now – it had been all the women of the village had been able to do to get him to leave the sling behind before coming to the table for meals, even ten days before. They half-stumbled on, the mountaincraft they had learned as children their only hope of survival. Eledra looked up and felt even her legs give a sigh of relief. Not thirty feet away, uphill, a finger of jagged rock stood straight up in the scree, and beyond it, a hole in the mountain’s side like some terrible scar was visible, black against the darkness – the entrance to Deram’s Labyrinth. As children, she and Tom and Marl had dared each other to go into the Labyrinth – the one place their parents had told them never to go, even in play. None of them had ever gone more than a few steps inside, and now it was their only hope of survival.

The mûrd archers still fired the occasional arrow, but they were not great shots, particularly against moving targets. The shot that had taken Hurd had been a lucky one, probably quickly taken by an opportunist mûrd in reflex rather than carefully set up. Eledra prayed as she stumbled. She prayed to Erminan, Goddess of the weak, and to Kamrinan, God of warriors, and to Eldrenan, God of luck, to see them safe. The prayers came out ragged, between gasped breaths – she felt like someone had built a wall across her windpipe, then allowed thornvine to grow up it – but they came, audible if weak. She found herself slipping into a rhythm over the last stumbling, desperate steps.

The scree fell away from her, suddenly, and her reaching foot dropped an extra eight inches before finding ground. She finally fell onto her hands, gasping with relief as she realised they had reached the flat area before the cave. The bare, rough stone bruised and grazed her palms, but she ran on, on hands and feet, careful to keep her knees up. Her panic-driven speed quickly returned her to her aching, abused feet, and she found herself in darkness. The darkness was more than unnatural, flowing around her like some ethereal liquid, its currents filling her eyes and clouding her sight until she could not even see her hand before her face. She turned towards the cave mouth and saw only darkness.

She walked deeper into the cave, seeming to step, or rather stumble, without moving. Holding her hands out in front of her, she half-collapsed onwards, her legs moving only to keep up with her falling body. She heard ragged breathing in the spaces between her thudding heartbeat in her ears.

Silently hoping, she spoke to the darkness, “Tom?” Her voice came out as little more than a gasped whisper.

“Yes,” he said, equally spent, “We mustn’t stop now, El. They were only a few yards behind us.”

“I haven’t stopped,” she replied, just as her hand touched stone. It was a relief to touch something solid in the liquid darkness that surrounded them, enough to jerk a sob from her throat.

“What’s wrong?” came Tom’s anxious voice, nearer now.

“Nothing. I just found the back of the cave,” her voice was stronger now, and she did not wheeze so badly, “Are… are the mûrd following? I can’t hear them.”

“I don’t think they are,” replied Tom, apprehension flooding through his tired voice. “I’ve reached the wall,” he said, off to her left somewhere, “Where are you?”

“To your le - right,” she replied, having to pause to think which side it would be for him. She heard him begin to come closer, but it was still a shock to feel his hand touch her arm. “What do we do now?” she asked, timidly.

“I don’t know,” replied Tom, sounding scared, “but I can see a light over there. Unless you’ve suddenly decided to grow a halo,” he added, the humour sounding strangled by his exhaustion. It brought an unseen smile to Eledra’s face anyway. She looked off to her right, and sure enough, there was a dim glow visible.

“I don’t think it’s the cave mouth,” she said, hesitantly. She was scared now, no longer terrified. She was spent, and if they were attacked now, she would certainly die. She reached up and put her arm around her brother’s broad shoulders.

“We might as well go and find out,” he said, trying to sound like he wasn’t as worried as she was. Looping his own arm over hers and around her shoulder, they began to walk on legs as sure as deep snow for walking on, stumbling like drunkards in a vaguely straight line towards the light. It began to glow brighter as they did so, though whether it was as their eyes began to adjust to the fluid blackness or that the source of the light was growing nearer, neither knew.

Arm outstretched, Eledra was the first to touch stone in front of them. The light had suddenly seemed to move to their left. It took her a moment to work out that they had reached a bend in the corridor, or perhaps the place in the back wall of the cave where a tunnel lead deeper into the Labyrinth. They followed that corridor, and the light continued to brighten.

They proceeded like that for some time, stumbling through darkness while the silvery-grey light grew. After some time, they could make out the corridor walls. They followed the light through twists and turns, sometimes choosing between two paths, always following that light. How long they stumbled onwards, they did not know. They might even have slept, though neither could really tell. They did not speak, and it would be fair to say that they were all but asleep.

All that changed when they entered what could only be the central chamber of the Labyrinth.

The echo had been growing stronger for some time, the being realised. The natural resonance caused by the proximity of the one Elanderel that Deram the Binder had left to it in its sleep to the similar stone which had been left as a taunt in the village below the labyrinth. Esse-Deramhin, they had called it; Deram’s Triumph. The being remembered bitterly Deram’s voice as it was bound to the labyrinth, taunting that all it need do was reach outside the labyrinth a mile or so, and it would be free. Of course the being could no more escape the labyrinth with only a single Elanderel than a stone could think. Now, it seemed, that Elanderel was coming to the labyrinth.

Now the Elanderel was within the labyrinth. The being could at least control everything which happened inside his prison – it was, after all, crafted from his own dreams. The two exhausted little-kin who carried the precious stone, he guided through all the traps Deram had set, all the twists and turns that could make anyone think they had not repeated a step, yet keep them going round in circles until they died of exhaustion. The Nuraen-birthed soldiers, the being wrapped in the dark energies of the prison until they no longer breathed. None had made a sound, and none more crossed the threshold that night. The being could feel his strength growing with every step the little-kin took, but he also knew doubt. Little-kin had defeated it once. Did these come to help, or to taunt?

It did not matter. They had reached the inner chambers. The power was almost in him to reach out and take the Elanderel now. When they reached him, he would take it before they could begin whatever had brought them here. And then…

For the first time in a hundred years, Arkhangel would greet the dawn alive